The Nit Picker

Special thanks to Colin Brake,

GUNGE agent extraordinaire.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Gunk Aliens Series!

Copyright

About the Publisher

“Right, this is it,” announced Jack Brady in an excited whisper. His hand was trembling slightly as he reached out towards the new invention sitting on the workbench. In his hand he held the final component – the tiny data chip on to which he had loaded the voice command program. Using tweezers, Jack carefully slipped the memory card into position and then he closed the cover.

“Oscar, it’s ready!” he announced.

Slipping his magnifying goggles from his face, Jack glanced over at his best friend Oscar, who was lounging on a beanbag and staring into space.

“Oscar!”

As if moving through treacle, Oscar slowly turned his head to look at Jack with half-asleep eyes. “Yeah?”

Jack peered at Oscar curiously. What was wrong with him? Jack was a thinker, a genius inventor who was always developing great new toys to play with, and Oscar, his best friend, was the man of action – Jack’s first and most loyal crash-test dummy. Usually Oscar couldn’t wait to have a go with whatever new invention Jack had come up with, but today he just didn’t seem interested. It was like he was ill or something.

“It’s a voice-recognition remote-control chopper,” said Jack. “Don’t you want to see what it can do?”

Oscar just shrugged. “Yeah, whatever. Maybe after school.”

Jack sighed and looked over at his dog, Snivel. “Can you believe this, Snivel?”

Snivel shook his head. “No, but it is nearly time for you to go to school,” he replied.

Snivel was not an ordinary dog. For a start he had three eyes.

“You need to keep that third eye of yours closed,” Jack reminded him.

Snivel nodded and his face creased up with the effort, but finally he managed to close his third eye which was in the middle of his forehead. CLUNK! He fell over – the level of concentration causing him to lose his balance. Snivel was a robot dog. In fact, he was a Snot-Bot. Powered by alien technology that used human snot as an energy source, Snivel’s function was to assist Jack in locating and capturing aliens. Jack had been given Snivel by a secret organisation called GUNGE – the General Under-Committee for the Neutralisation of Gruesome Extraterrestrials – and together they had captured five aliens over the last few months.

Jack blew his nose, then checked his tissue and tossed it over to his unusual dog. “There you go,” he said. “I’ve got a bit of a cold again so you’re in luck. Plenty of extra treats for you!”

Gratefully Snivel sucked up the snot and immediately bounced back on to his feet. Jack picked up the now totally dry tissue and put it back in his pocket. That snack would keep Snivel’s batteries powered for the rest of the day. But he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the way the little robot dog hoovered up his snot …

“You coming?” he said to Oscar as he headed for the door of their tree house. But the only reply he received was another shrug of the shoulders. He stared at Oscar who eventually let out a long, deep sigh. He rose wearily to his feet and followed Jack slowly down the ladder.

The tree house which the boys shared was actually a large garden shed that Oscar’s dad had won in a newspaper competition. The boys had houses that backed on to each other, and the large tree at the end of Oscar’s garden was the perfect place for a tree house – so Oscar’s dad had hired a crane to locate the shed safely in its branches.

Jack had been so keen to complete his latest invention that he had called Oscar over to the tree house early, before school, but now he was beginning to wonder why he had bothered. Oscar just didn’t seem himself recently. As they walked to school, in unusual silence, Jack applied his genius brain to the problem. What’s wrong with Oscar?

It didn’t take Jack long to come up with an answer. It was obvious really. Oscar was clearly missing the excitement of their work with GUNGE fighting against the GUNK Aliens.

It had all started with a bin at the local park. Except it wasn’t a bin, of course, it was really a pan-dimensional secret base from which the mysterious GUNGE agent named Bob had given instructions to Jack, Oscar and their friend Ruby. The base was bigger on the inside and able to move around to different hidden locations. The problem was that Bob had turned out to be a traitor and he had now stolen the base and moved it. The new Bob (who seemed to be a woman this time) had contacted the kids and given them a new mission. They had to locate the base – which was where the aliens they had caught were being held – before any other members of the GUNK Alien alliance could find and rescue the captured aliens. Back in the summer holidays they had successfully managed to find it once, hidden in an off-shore wind farm, but before they could secure it, Bad Bob had managed to move the base again, leaving them back at square one. Since then there had been no contact from New Bob, and no sign of any alien activity. It had all gone very quiet. No wonder Oscar was a bit fed up.

Still not really talking, the boys reached Ruby’s house. As usual Ruby was late. She had managed to get out of her front door, as she always did, but then, inevitably, she was held up by her over-protective mother.

“Have you got your vest on, darling?” Ruby’s mother was saying as Jack and Oscar arrived at her driveway.

“Yes,” hissed Ruby, who had seen her friends arriving and was now deeply embarrassed.

“And your inhaler?” asked Ruby’s mum.

“Mum, I haven’t had asthma since I was three,” complained Ruby.

“Well, that’s as may be, but you can’t take any chances with something like asthma,” insisted her mother. “Especially with the change of weather.”

Jack looked up at the sky, which was unblemished by a single cloud.

“It’s been sunny for days,” Ruby told her mum, narrowing her eyes.

Ruby’s mum didn’t miss a beat. “Exactly!” she said, thrusting her hand out and waving the asthma inhaler at Ruby. Ruby sighed, took the inhaler, dropped it into her school bag and hurried down the path to join her friends.

“And be careful when you cross that main road,” called out Ruby’s mother from her front door.

Jack couldn’t help smiling as he saw Ruby roll her eyes in horror. “How old does she think you are?” he teased.

Ruby just shot him a dark look. “Don’t!” she ordered him tersely.

Jack looked around and realised that Oscar was still standing at the end of Ruby’s drive. Ruby turned to follow his gaze.

“Come on, Oscar, we’re meant to be going to school, remember?” shouted Jack.

As if in a dream-world, Oscar turned his head towards the source of the words, a puzzled expression on his face. It was as if he had to think about each individual word that Jack had said before he could begin to answer.

Finally he seemed to be ready. “OK,” he said and began to walk slowly towards them. Ruby and Jack headed for school.

“What’s wrong with Oscar?” Ruby wondered.

Now it was Jack who was shrugging. “He’s just in this weird mood,” he confessed to Ruby. “He’s been like that for days. Doesn’t say much. Won’t play with any of my inventions. Seems half asleep most of the time.”

“He’s not the only one,” said Ruby.

“What do you mean?” said Jack.

“Other kids at school have been acting weird too. Haven’t you noticed?”

Jack had to confess that he hadn’t noticed anything of the sort.

“Well, that’s no surprise,” said Ruby laughing. “You’re always in a dream world yourself.”

“Not dreaming,” said Jack, mock-seriously. “Thinking very hard about my inventions.”

Ruby grinned. “Whatever. But the thing is, loads of kids at school have been going around in a daze lately. Just like Oscar.”

“Sort of like they’re not all there?” said Jack.

Ruby nodded. “Exactly. And I can tell you exactly when it started too.”

Jack looked at her expectantly.

“Ever since the new Nit Nurse came to school.”

The Nit Nurse was a new thing for the school. Nits, however, were not. Ever since Jack had started school he’d regularly had to take a note home to his mum saying that ‘someone’ in his class had head lice and that she should take care to check Jack’s hair and wash it with special anti-nit shampoo. Once Jack had even had nits himself! He would never forget the nightly nit hunt, with his mum scraping special liquid through his hair with a thin-toothed metal comb.

Jack’s mum had told him that when she was young there had been a visitor in school who would check every child in every class for head lice. That was the proper name for nits – head lice. Jack thought it sounded really gross. Head lice were little insects that lived in children’s hair and laid their eggs there too. People said that in some cases you could actually see the little creatures running around on kids’ heads! There were all sorts of rumours about the nits – that they only liked dirty hair, or greasy hair, or hair that was only washed once a week. But Jack’s mum was a nurse so he knew it was all nonsense. The nits weren’t fussy – as long as there was hair of a reasonable length they didn’t care how clean or dirty it was.

In Jack’s school the teachers tried to be really fair about the whole business and not point the finger at individuals. That was why they sent out a letter to the whole class so no one felt victimised. However, when Jack had returned to school after the summer holidays the Head had made an announcement at assembly that changed all that. He had told everyone that due to a new government initiative there was going to be school nurse in every primary school. Jack’s school had been selected for a “pilot scheme” to see what benefits this new idea might have. The upshot was that a woman called Nurse Marsh would be joining the staff and she would see every child each week to check on any matters of health and fitness, including head lice. The Head had then introduced Nurse Marsh. She was an odd-looking woman with a heavily lined face that didn’t move when she smiled. She told the children in assembly that she was really looking forward to making sure they were all as healthy as could be, and then her stomach rumbled loudly.

“All the kids who’ve been acting strangely have been to see the Nit Nurse,” said Ruby as they walked down the street towards school.

Jack realised she was right. In Oscar’s case for sure: he had been to see Nurse Marsh every day last week and had refused to talk about it with Jack at all. What did she do to him? he wondered. Why would a Nit Nurse want to …

Suddenly Jack stopped dead in his tracks.

“Of course!” he said, slapping his forehead in annoyance.

“What?” said Ruby.

Jack was nodding to himself now. “I knew there was something strange about her face.”

“Well, she is old and ugly,” agreed Ruby.

“No, no, no …” replied Jack.

“Come off it,” insisted Ruby. “She’s got a face like a block of granite. She’s not only been touched by the Ugly Stick, she’s been beaten around the head by it until she’s dizzy. She’s a total minger.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m not arguing with that,” explained Jack. “But that’s not the point I was trying to make. It’s the skin on her face I was talking about. It doesn’t move right. It’s not natural. It’s like … like she’s had plastic surgery or something.”

“Why would you have a face-lift and ask to look like that?” wondered Ruby.

“Because it’s not a face-lift,” said Jack with certainty. “It’s a mask. She must be another GUNK Alien in disguise.”

Ruby stared at him. “You’re not serious.”

“I am.”

“The Nit Nurse is an alien?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Jack.

“So what do you think she’s doing to the kids?” Ruby asked.

“I don’t know,” Jack confessed. “But I’m going to find out. Somehow kids who get their nits treated are losing their get-up-and-go.”

“So we’re looking for an alien that makes people lose interest in things,” mused Ruby. “Maybe Snivel can come up with an answer.”

Snivel couldn’t come to school – his unusual appearance would lead to too many questions. So Jack had to wait until all his lessons were over to investigate further. As usual, Snivel arranged to meet Jack at the local park. Oscar had shown no interest in the whole situation and had decided to go home straight after school, and Ruby’s mother had insisted on picking her up in the car to go and buy some new ballet shoes, so Jack was all alone. It felt weird to be on the verge of another adventure and not have his two companions by his side. At least Snivel was still there.

Except he wasn’t!

When Jack reached the bench which was their usual meeting point, Snivel was nowhere to be seen. Jack sat down heavily and sighed.

A moment or two later Snivel came tearing out of some bushes and bounded up to Jack.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, seeing Jack’s expression. “I thought I saw that robot squirrel of Bob’s …”

Jack sat up. Both Bobs – the original GUNGE contact now known as Bad Bob, and New Bob – had used a robot squirrel as a surveillance device.

“And did you?” he asked.

Snivel shook his head. “Sorry,” he reported. “It was just a squirrel. So I chased it for appearance’s sake.”

Jack started to tell Snivel about the Nit Nurse and his suspicions about her alien nature. Snivel nodded. “I’ll look it up.” Before Bad Bob had made his base disappear, Snivel had managed to download the complete GUNGE alien intelligence database. He accessed the database now and within a few moments he had an answer for Jack.

“There’s one alien who totally fits the bill,” he announced. “It’s called the Sonomarshillian.”

Jack jumped up. “That sounds likely. Sonomarshillian – Nurse Marsh. So what can you tell me about it?”

Snivel started to rattle off the full data entry. “Sonomarshillian, inhabitant of a number of worlds in the Gamma Quadrant. Alien life-form that eats anything, but is particularly fond of small insects, such as fleas and head lice. The saliva of the Sonomarshillian contains an enzyme which has a marked soporific effect on most mammals. Creatures that are licked by the Sonomarshillian will become lethargic and lifeless. Repeated exposure to the enzyme in Sonomarshillian saliva can be fatal.”

Jack paced up and down in front of Snivel. “That’s got to be it. That completely fits what’s happening here. She must be licking up the nits from kids’ heads and leaving them … dozy.”

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